New Hampshire passes legislation to become the 17th legal mmj state

Today, the Republican-dominated New Hampshire House passed legislation that would make New Hampshire the 17th medical marijuana state.

The vote was a crushing 236-96, which is a veto-proof majority. And we actually needed to get a veto-proof majority, because Gov. John Lynch (D) has promised to veto our bill, just as he did in 2009.

A few weeks ago, the state Senate voted 13-11 to pass our bill, so MPP’s New Hampshire team is working furiously to get up to 16 votes in the Senate, which would be a veto-proof majority in that chamber.

Seems more and more people in the U.S. are moving toward the end of prohibition.

6. If anyone has quick access to population stats

I wonder how many voters in the U.S. live in states that now have legalized mmj? I did a rough count at one time. By region, New Hampshire fits right in with the overwhelming majority of voters for legalized mmj as of last year - this is a comparison poll by region.

12. here's an article

While he has empathy for those ill patients who need medical marijuana to get through their recoveries, Gov. John Lynch, D-Hopkinton, said today that he still has real concerns about the proliferation and distribution of medicinal cannabis.

At a fundraising breakfast at Concord Hospital for the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Greater Concord program, Lynch said other governors have had a hard time controlling the medical marijuana. He cited California, where “there are so many points of distribution they can’t keep track of it all,” and Montana, another state that has recently introduced the program. Lynch said the governor there told him that ski areas had become the busiest points of distribution, to giggles by alumni of the leadership class who attended the breakfast.

Lynch said he would be more comfortable having it controlled and regulated like prescription drugs, where the pharmacy distributed it to patients after a doctor prescribed it.

“If you can’t control it, you can never get it back,” he said. “I’m very nervous about having almost unlimited distribution and proliferation of it.”

He doesn't want mmj to be the slippery slope that allows people to use it for pleasure rather than medicine, because, god forbid that people would, say, drink a beer for something other than the Vit. B.

14. this is not a party issue

although many Democrats tend to be less reactionary about this issue at this time (and were when Carter was in office as well, but not so with Clinton - he was a triangulating drug warrior who fought against CA's mmj laws in the 90s.)

While 42 members of the WA state legislature, in an historic request, have called for the federal govt to reschedule cannabis

Washington D.C. is supposed to begin implementation of mmj laws this spring, on May 4th. It took decades to get the federal legislative branch to fund implementation of the law.

I think the thing that has really caused Americans to become so strongly in favor of legalization of mmj is b/c enough ppl know its value for chemo patients - though they aren't the only ones.

Most Americans can do a simple cost/benefit analysis and see that being able to keep down medication or keep from wasting away (which is why some cancer patients die) is more valuable than keeping some stoner stereotype from his big bud.

So many people have experimented with mj at some point, they know the relative harmlessness of this substance compared to hard drugs that are deemed to have medical value.

The average pattern of use is experimentation as a young adult, a decline in use as that group marries and has children, and then acceptance of cannabis when that group moves into ages when diseases start to become more prevalent - such as cancer, arthritis, MS, etc - cannabis is useful for all these, as well as CP, epilepsy and migraines.

There are some indications cannabis can be synthesized to use as treatment for cancer, not just a secondary medication for side effects. We would all benefit if our govt would reschedule to allow more research on this topic.

So, again, considering the benefits - as well as the experiences of other nations that have instituted regulated markets - if most people would do an honest cost/benefit - cannabis would be legal, imo.